Here's a version from a relatively rare book recently available through Google on-line; it appears to be the original music hall version, but then, who knows?

EVERY INCH A SAILOR
by: John Read
From: "Naval Songs: A Collection of Original, Selected and Traditional Sea Songs"
Published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., 1883 (no author given)

My Uncle Jack is what some people call a jolly tar,
And I should think that he was born beneath a lucky star;
If all is true that he's gone through, a wonder he must be,
He's every inch a sailor and was born upon the sea.

Cho (x2):
Jack was every inch a sailor,
Five and twenty years a whaler;
Jack is every inch a sailor,
Born upon the bright blue sea.

On a stormy night it's my delight to mix a glass of grog,
And then get Jack to spin a yarn before the burning log.
And after you've been listening to all that he has said,
You feel so frighten'd that you cannot go alone to bed.

"One night" said he, "while out at sea there came a dreadful gale
Which wash'd me overboard and I was swallow'd by a whale,
And there I liv'd for twenty days a wandering about,
Then seized the whale right by the tail and turn'd him inside out."
(spoken after third verse) I said to my friend, who was siting by my side, there is no mistake about it.

So if you wish to pass a pleasant hour or two away,
Just call and see old Uncle Jack, and then I think you'll say:
"He ev'ry inch a sailor and as jolly as can be,
For many years a whaler, quite a hero of the sea."